Day 9 - Letting Go of Comparison

Comparison is the thief of joy. ~Theodore Roosevelt

Today I was at a friend’s house to see her darling, new little lambs. Two of the lambs were rejected by their mom and my friend is hand feeding them. There was an obvious difference in the size of the lambs and we kept comparing the two.Comparison is so easy, isn’t it? We do it all the time, without even thinking. We even have children’s books to help them describe taller and shorter, bigger and smaller, quieter and louder. “Compare and contrast” is the prompt for practically every essay I ever wrote. It’s important to compare the relative value of something to its cost, so we don’t pay too much for something. We compare the nutritional value of different foods in order to (hopefully) make better choices for our health. So, comparison is not a bad thing…until it takes a bite out of our soul.We all know how it works. When I compare my salary to someone else’s salary and theirs is higher than mine, I somehow feel devalued. When my running time is not as fast as my running buddy, I feel like I have to work a little harder next time to catch up. If my body doesn’t look as good as the air-brushed figure in the magazine, I feel less desirable. When my house is the smallest one of all my friends, I can begin to imagine that I’m not as blessed as they are. Facebook and Pinterest are comparison machines…we compare numbers of friends, coolness of posts, and on and on. It’s especially painful to be compared to your sister or your brother. These comparisons can throw us into a tailspin of depression and even shame.The opposite comparison is just as damaging. If I compare myself to others and come out smarter, healthier, wealthier, and more spiritual, the end result can easily be one of pride. Either way, comparison has eaten away at the joy of being who we are.I confess to falling into the trap of comparison on occasion. In order to let go of comparison, however, all I have to do is look in the mirror. What if my eye were to compare itself to my hand and wish to be a hand instead of an eye? Or, what if my liver felt devalued because it was not a heart? Or what if my brain felt superiority over my lungs and suggested that my body could possibly do without my lungs in favor of the brain? It’s ridiculous, right? The point is there is no point in comparing such things!Scriptures tell us to be honest in our estimate of ourselves, not thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought, but having a sober judgment of who we are (Romans 12:3). Each one of us beautiful and unique, created to be part of a larger whole. We need each other to be different!So, instead of comparing myself in order to determine superiority or inferiority in any given arena, perhaps I could simply rest in my own belovedness and appreciate the true beauty of the other person.  Letting go of comparison would create space in my life for joyfully loving and being loved.